Connecting Modernities

Editors’ introductory chapter delineates common threads among the volume’s cross-disciplinary contributions and connects these to the history of research on modernity as well as the most compelling issues confronting us today. The introduction discusses how the pandemic carries on the possibility (threat?) of a tabula rasa condition, a civilizational detour based on a foundation of global awareness of nature and society. The authors support the need for global problem-solving strategies, new global ethics, and a global resource management paradigm solidly cognizant of the commons and redistribution. The introduction explores the main hiatuses in today’s modernity and provides an update to the necessary assertion of a global modernity in the midst of political, ecological, and health crises.

The distributional outcomes of rights-based management in fisheries

Fisheries managers have increasingly adopted rights-based management (i.e., “catch shares” or “individual transferable quotas” [ITQs]) to address economic and biological management challenges under prior governance regimes. Despite their ability to resolve some of the symptoms of the tragedy of the commons and improve economic efficiency, catch shares remain controversial for their potentially disruptive social effects. One criticism is that the benefits of rights-based reforms are unequally distributed across vessels and between fishery participants (e.g., crew and hired captains) and that stakeholders that do not receive an allocation of harvest rights may see their remuneration decrease. Yet, empirically assessing these claims is difficult in almost all ITQs due to poor availability of longitudinal cost, earnings, and employment data. This paper evaluates these claims using vessel-level data to characterize impacts of a long-established ITQ program for Alaskan crab fisheries on the level and distribution of payments to claimant groups. We find that the share of vessel proceeds accruing to captains, crew, and vessel owners declined under the catch-share regime to make room for new payments to quota owners. Average daily payments to captains, crew, and vessel owners declined, albeit slightly, yet retained their pre-ITQ premia relative to compensation in other sectors. However, inequality in payments to workers and vessel owners declined after ITQs, as did the interseasonal volatility in compensation to workers, a measure of financial risk. Finally, we find that consolidation-induced increases in leasing costs have had little effect on workers’ remuneration, but have reduced returns to vessel ownership.

The Political Ecology of the Decentralized Water Management in Zimbabwe

The chapter assesses the notion of local scale and decentralization that emanates from the IWRM principles. Evaluation of the benefits of decentralization was done through the political ecology lens that critically examines fairness and power struggles across spaces. Sanyati catchment was used to draw empirical evidence in light of the theoretical expectations of decentralization towards catchment water security. Qualitative approach was used to collect data. Interviews were the main sources of data collection. The findings showed that decentralization has failed to produce the desired results compared to what is assumed in the dominant narrative that highly esteems the decentralization management approach. The chapter showed that what brings results are not local scales and suggests that probably fair and transparent resource distribution and allocation at any scale may bring about water protection that does not trigger the tragedy of the commons.

Commoning the State Forest: Crafting Commons through an Indonesian Social Forestry Program

Studies of the commons grew out of responses to Hardin's bleak prediction of “tragedy of the commons,” that without state intervention or privatization, any commons will eventually be destroyed by allegedly self-interested users. As such, the commons studies traditionally tend to demonstrate cases where common pool resources (CPR) can be sustainably managed by groups of people beyond the state and market interventions. This paper shows a case from Sulawesi, Indonesia, where a state social forestry program can create a space for the program beneficiaries to build a commons. Through fieldwork that involves participant observation and in-depth interviews with program extension workers and beneficiaries in two social forestry farmer groups, this study found that the program can stimulate beneficiary groups to build collective action in managing the state forest plots admitted to them and that the two groups are the only successful ones among 14 neighboring groups that are involved in the same program. The study also shows that the management of the state-sponsored commons requires extension workers with deep knowledge about local people and landscape, economic incentives, and the flexibility of the local state agency in bending the rules based on bottom-up demands. Therefore, the case study shows that, on the one hand, the state program can actually stimulate the creation of the commons. On the other hand, commoning seems to be the only way to ensure a successful social forestry program.

The Citizen’s Role in Creating a Climate of Justice

In the civic space, citizens with access to resources must learn how to respond to the civilians who need them in such a way that it changes the unjust social climate to a climate of justice. This Chapter explores three options of citizens responding to civilians: empathy, a commons approach, and the ethics of care. Jeremy Rifkin has argued that we have evolved to “the age of empathy,” but this approach ignores the difference between those who are privileged and those who are not. The commons approach invites all to become “commoners,” sharing and shaping a common future. This approach has attractions, but it ignores past injustices and the role of the rule of law in protecting civilians. The ethics of care does invite privileged citizens to listen to civilian claims to join them in repairing broken relationships and caring about justice.